Canon's faster Serenar rangefinder wide — 35mm f/2.8 in Leica Thread Mount, manual focus.
The Canon Serenar 35mm f/2.8 is a wide-angle rangefinder lens made in Japan for the 39mm Leica screw thread. It wears the early Serenar brand that Canon applied to its rangefinder optics before standardising on the Canon name. This f/2.8 version gave a faster alternative to the slower Serenar 35mm wides for Leica-thread and Canon rangefinder bodies.
This is a manual-focus, rangefinder-coupled Leica Thread Mount lens with a 35mm focal length and a maximum aperture of f/2.8. The mount is the 39mm Leica screw thread (LTM / L39 / M39). Focus and aperture are set by hand on the barrel. Element count, weight and filter thread are omitted here because they are not verified.
At 35mm the lens covers a broadly useful field for reportage, street and travel, wider than normal but easy to compose with. The f/2.8 maximum aperture gives some extra reach into lower light than the f/3.2 and f/3.5 wides. Contrast and corner detail firm up as the lens is stopped down.
Buying used, look closely for haze, fungus and balsam separation in the cemented groups, as these are common in early screw-mount glass. Check coatings for cleaning marks and wear, inspect the aperture blades for oil, and confirm the focus helicoid is smooth. Verify rangefinder-coupling accuracy on a body. The lens adapts well to Leica M with an M39-to-M adapter and to mirrorless via M39-to-E, M39-to-Z or M39-to-RF adapters.